With Pru on ABC Victoria Statewide we had a wonderful discussion about park benches with lots of listeners calling in to tell us why they love park benches on our travels.
I love picking apart my travels and finding within my travel experiences the things I do at home and away. Exploring a General Store, a market, catching public transport and in this case, sitting on a park bench to admire the view, have a rest, eat a pie or strike up a conversation.
I loved sitting with my son Tom on a bench by the Thames as much as I love the bench at the end of Boundary Road, overlooking Shoalwater Bay where my school holidays were spent. Where is your favourite park bench?
Talking with Fred on The Couch about sports tourism was fascinating to explore the global size and rise of sports tourism and consider how often people travel for sport, where to see a favourite sport or tour an iconic ground.
South Fremantle Bulldogs in the change rooms after a big win
Talking Travel on 6PR with Burgo (audio at the end) spends a fair share of time overseas but came home this week to visit the things we’ve made that we can travel to.
Man-made attractions play a really important part in tourism, they represent heritage, engineering and sometimes are just there for fun. We had a caller who is about to visit Lake Argyle, the second biggest man-made lake in Australia. We mooooved our way down south to Cowarumup where they’re encouraging travellers to stop a while and enjoy the 42 life size cows that are in the streets and parks of this little town.
The Busselton Jetty, Lake Ballard sculptures, dams and lighthouses all got a mention and we even included the biggest periodic table in the world, right here in Perth!
Enjoy the pics and audio below:
Nearly 30 lighthouses are on the WA coast, many of which can be climbed and enjoyed.Busselton Jetty is nearly 2km’s long and you can walk or ride a train to the end. Heritage listed with an underwater observatory makes this an amazing jetty experience.The water cooler statue of CY O’Connor on Hannan Street in Kalgoorlie reminds us of the extraordinary water pipeline from Perth to the Goldfields. The Cunderdin Museum, located in an original pumping station, has a lot of pipeline history that’s worth a visit.
On 6PR with Fred we listed a few of our favourite travel firsts. First flights. First time overseas. First family holiday. Enjoy the discussion in the audio file below. Let me know what your favourite travel first is. I was in South Australia recently and my son Tom, who has travelled the world, was amazed by Stobie Poles.
With all the sites and sights of the world a power pole on his first trip to South Australia is what caught his attention!
On 6PR Weekend Wrap Up, I found myself sharing the airwaves with John Burgess, an icon of Australian television and radio. A tv game show host legend and a radio dj when dj’s were gods of the airwaves. It was very cool to laugh our way through stories about sports tourism.
From callers with tales about naked West Indian cricketers to iconic events and venues around the world and close to home, with a lot of laughter we covered more ground than the MCG.
Enjoy listening to the first half of the show in the file below. Just like a Grand Prix driver, we go off track from time to time but we got to the finish line in style!
I’ve had a spectacular summer presenting a travel show each Saturday afternoon as part of the Saturday Catch Up.
We explored so many topics from adventures in the air, staycations here at home, roadtrips, ferry’s around the world, train travel around the world, festivals a whole lot more.
Ever wondered what I sound like? Have a listen to the audio below and hopefully you don’t run screaming from the room!
On ABC Perth Saturday Breakfast we found mural trails in Kuching and Milan and in ever increasing numbers here in Perth and our regional communities. Where’s your favourite mural? Where’s your worst?
Enjoy listening to our discussion below and then find a way to find a mural next weekend, and then walk to another one, and another one. You get the idea.
On the Weekend Explorer for ABC Perth Saturday Breakfast, I recently explored space and rediscovered my memories of Skylab and discovered observatories, big dishes, astrotourism towns, astronauts in Carnarvon, emus in the sky and starlapse wonder by local photographer, Dan Paris.
Listen to the link below to learn more about Astrotourism and some really good music but really bad space jokes:
One of our best ever Hidden Treasures stories of all time! With special guest star, global writing superstar Molly Schmidt, we explored local books and the use of local locations and how they inspire our travels.
Listen to our chat below and learn not just what our favourite Western Australian books are but how important those local locations can be:
Perth isn’t that old is it? And our regional communities aren’t any older? While our Aboriginal culture is tens of thousands of years old, our oldest buildings are less than two hundred years old.
But that doesn’t stop many of them from sending a shiver up or down our spine and feeling that spirits from another time and another place are with us.
The ABC Facebook page was inundated with paranormal experiences across Western Australia. Callers to the show also spoke about regional haunted places.
Many of us swear to have seen ghosts or felt their presence in places and spaces so my sidekick Tom and I went to investigate some tales of the unexplained from right here in Perth.
The great thing about Scooby Doo is that it was always an old, grizzled fellow from an abandoned amusement park who was scaring people while wearing some ghoulish costume – and he would have gotten away with it if it wasn’t from those meddlin’ kids!
But the real thing is somewhat different. As I discovered, there’s tours telling ghost stories and buildings with ghosts in them, right here in our suburbs.
Gosnells Ghost Tours – Get in line with your ticket for their summer season at the end of this year. These tours encounter the spirits of timber workers from the 1860’s community of Orange Grove.
Over a five kilometre bush track walk from the Victoria Dam to Bickley Reservoir you’ll meet friendly ghosts who will share history of the area and colourful tales from convicts under the railway bridge. It’s dark, it’s spooky and it’s very entertaining!
Friendly and full of fact ghosts on the Gosnells Ghost Tour
Leederville Hotel – I climbed the stairs up to the dome on top of the hotel with my son Tom and staff member Isobel, although I quickly noticed Isabel was more than just a few steps behind! Isobel has, in her words ‘been completely creeped out’ and many of her staff refuse to go up there alone.
Apparently, a fellow named Kanga lived in the tower bedroom and died on the premises and although there’s no violent or tragic story to his life or demise, many people have come in contact with Kanga, particularly in the corridors of the old, original upstairs part of the hotel.
Is that Kanga the ghost of Tom my sidekick?
Isabel tells me that his strongest presence is felt on the on the stairs. She tells me this from the ground floor as Tom and I are making our way up the stairs. Tom you go first.
Creeeeek!
The Leederville alarm story must be told! Leaving a note to calm Kanga and the next morning the note was gone and the alarm that had been going off in the middle of the night for months never happened again.
The Alkimos – Stranded just north of Mindarie in 1963 it was while it sailed around the world that crew members reported a ghost on board, possibly a US soldier or German prisoner of war. There’s also been many reports for divers and snorkellers who claim to have seen Harry, a ghost in oil skins who loiters around the wreck and even on the shore.
Kenwick Cemetery – Alongside the Albany Highway, most people who drive past would never know this little final resting place for early settlers was there. Built by convicts, most of the graves have no headstones and speaking of heads, many people have reported seeing in the area a man riding a horse, holding his own head.
Woodman Point Quarantine Station – If ever there was a ‘creep you out’ destination, this is it. It’s a reminder that before Covid, there were other pandemics.
This station was used to isolate bubonic plague patients, smallpox, Spanish flu and leprosy. Over 300 people died there, and most would have been isolated from loved ones and in great pain.
There are walking tours you can take through the buildings, including the crematorium where it is believed by many that orbs of light floating through the crematorium is the spirit of the final smallpox victim who was cremated there.
Others include the Fremantle Arts Centre (Fremantle Lunatic Asylum), Midland Town Hall (the ghost of Daria Mulawa, brutally murdered on its steps in 1955), Rose & Crown Guildford (oldest hotel in WA and more paranormal encounters than an episode of Scooby Doo.
Regional haunts include the story of the Coolgardie Cat, the Israelite Bay telegraph station, Gwalia and Kookynie in the Goldfields are well known for the restless spirits of prospectors and railway workers.
Spooky spaces and places are hidden treasures because they provide a sense of adventure and also provide a link to the past, creating a way to learn about a buildings history and often a communities history.
Just send your sidekick up the stairs first. That’s what sidekicks are for.
Chris Parry Writes For Us 